FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT ZENITHOPTIMEDIA - PAGE 2

NEW DELHI: Leading travel services firms Expedia.com and Yatra.com are loosening their purse strings with close to Rs 100 crore being earmarked to be spent on advertising and marketing campaigns this year. While Expedia, the world's leading travel services provider said it will spend Rs 60 crore this year, Yatra has set aside Rs 30 crore apart from roping in ZenithOptimedia as media planning and buying agency. In a bid to woo Indian customers after its entry in India last year, Expedia has launched a 360 degree campaign -- One word for travel.

LONDON: The World Cup soccer tournament has boosted advertising spending in many countries, but not in the host nation Germany, where most of the matches were shown on public television, new data released on Monday shows. ZenithOptimedia, the media planning and buying firm, slightly raised its global ad spending outlook to 6.1% growth in '06 to $431.1bn the day after the month-long competition ended, from the 6% it had forecast in April. The upgrade was largely based on strong US economic growth and improvement in Euro zone countries.

NEW DELHI: Service tax exemption on advertising on media platforms, excluding TV and radio, could result in availability of up to Rs 1,500 crore more to advertisers for spending on campaigns, according to industry experts. "Given that marketing budgets of companies always take into account the service tax component, now there will be more money available to be spent on media other than TV and radio (which are not exempt from service tax)," ZenithOptimedia Managing Partner Navin Khemka said.

NEW DELHI: CALL it the Group M effect. After two media companies from the InterPublic Group in India, Universal McCann and Lodestar, merged recently to form Universal Lodestar, it's the turn of the Publicis Groupe to do an encore. StarcomMediaVest and ZenithOptimedia, Publicis Groupe's two media agencies in the country, are in the process of creating a centralised media buying unit, Indian Media Exchange (IME). Publicis' IME will be a centralised division for both Starcom and Zenith, and it will take over all media-buying responsibilities, even while the two media outfits remain independent in terms of their planning and client-facing functions.

Buy Bye With the exit of Shyam Shankar in 2008, Ambika Srivastava has been at the helm as chairman of IMX, the media buying unit of the Publicis Group. But therein arises a conflict of interest. IMX works with both Starcom Mediavest and ZenithOptimedia. And Srivastava heads ZenithOptimedia as well. Which means that when Starcom and Zenith are pitching for the same business, Starcom cannot take Srivastava along for the pitch, lest she be privy to its strategy.

By: Jane Simms The traditional season of goodwill is being somewhat overshadowed by uncertainty about how the current credit crunch will affect the UK advertising market next year. Thomson Intermedia revealed last week that financial services companies had already cut back considerably on traditional advertising. However, the pain will not be restricted to the markets directly affected by the credit crunch, of which Northern Rock was the first high-profile UK casualty.

KOLKATA: Bharti Airtel , India's largest mobile carrier by revenue and subscribers, has called for a media agency pitch. It is touted as one of the biggest advertising pitches of 2014. The company has just finished the process of sending out invites to leading media agencies including Sam Balsara-led Madison World, which has been handling the account for the past 11 years. According to people in the know, other agencies in the fray include one of GroupM agencies, Lodestar, Dentsu Aegis Network, OMD and ZenithOptimedia.

NEW DELHI: Even as media buying and planning agencies witness a talent exodus owing to the industry's barebone cost structure, there are a host of new entrants waiting in wings to get in. Big ad agencies such as Dentsu are looking at completing their communication offering by launching their media independents (Dentsu Media Palette), even as management consultants are eyeing the space with Accenture working to launch its media audit division. Entrepreneurship in the sector is in full bloom once again, with Carat India's ex-COO Shripad Kulkarni ready with his own media specialist agency in the online and interactive space.

LONDON: Publicis Groupe and Omnicom Group agreed to merge in an all-stock deal to create the world's largest advertising company, toppling market leader WPP. Shareholders of Paris-based Publicis and New York-based Omnicom will each hold about 50% of the new company, to be called Publicis Omnicom Groupe, the companies said on Sunday in a joint statement. Publicis chief executive officer Maurice Levy and Omnicom's John Wren will become co-CEOs. The companies will have a combined market value of $35 billion and had $23 billion in 2012 revenue.

French communications giant Publicis Groupe's Indian digital entity Solutions Digitas has ceased to exist. Instead the digital arm will operate as two new companies with separate profit and loss statements. Both Digitas India and Solutions India are a part of the larger global entity called VivaKi. While Digitas India will specialise in digital creative, technology, strategic planning and CRM services, Solutions India will provide clients with retail and experiential marketing services.